Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJuly 10, 1894
Place of BirthKenora, Ontario
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinWilliam Walter Scott (father), Kenora, Ontario
Trade / CallingClerk
ReligionPresbyterian
Service Details
Regimental Number72104
Service RecordLink to Service Record
Battalion27th Battalion
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Infantry
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Place of EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Address at EnlistmentKenora, Ontario
Date of EnlistmentOctober 22, 1914
Age at Enlistment20
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathJune 16, 1965
Age at Death70
Buried AtVeterans Memorial Park, Surrey, British Columbia

Scott, George Richard

Private George Richard Scott joined the 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion in October 1914 and served in the UK, Belgium and France. He became ill in the summer of 1916 and he was invalided back to Canada the following spring.

George was born on 10 July 1894 in the town of Rat Portage in northwestern Ontario. His father William Walter Scott was from Berwick, Finch Township in eastern Ontario and he worked in Rat Portage (later renamed Kenora) as a lumber foreman. George’s mother Laura Felicia Anley was born in Trenton, Nova Scotia. William and Laura were married in Winnipeg in 1891 and they made their home in the Rat Portage area. They had four sons: Walter Wallace, who died as an infant, Allan Anley, George and Stuart Ross. William was involved in local politics and he served as an alderman for the town of Kenora.

The war started in August 1914 and two months later a second Canadian contingent was being raised for service overseas. George was 20 years old at the time, working as a clerk and training with the local militia, the 98th Regiment. He enlisted in Kenora on 22 October 1914, joining the 27th (City of Winnipeg) Battalion. The battalion had just been organized and it was being recruited in Manitoba and northwestern Ontario. On 1 November George headed to Winnipeg along with the other local volunteers and they trained in Manitoba over the winter.

In the spring of 1915 the recruits left for the east coast, on the first leg of their journey overseas. Their trains passed through Kenora on 13 May and a huge crowd gathered at the station to see the local lads off and wish them well. The battalion embarked from Quebec on 17 May on the SS Carpathia and the men trained for several months at military camps in England. At the end of August George spent a week in Moore Barracks Hospital recovering from tonsillitis. On 17 September his battalion marched to Folkestone on the coast where they boarded the Marguerite, disembarking at Boulogne, France the following day. Less than a week later the troops were in Belgium.

That fall the Canadians were holding a section of the front line south of Ypres. There were no major operations for them but the policy was one of aggressive activity against the Germans, including raids on their trenches. The battalions had regular rotations in the front lines and the troops also spent time in work parties, digging and repairing trenches and dugouts, training and going on patrols. On 24 January George was with his unit in the trenches when an artillery shell exploded nearby. He was wounded in the cheek by a piece of the shell and sent to a field ambulance for treatment. While he was there he wrote a letter to his parents about his experience and it was printed in the Kenora Miner and News. He was back with his battalion after just three days.

George was out of action again in February and March for a couple of weeks, first with measles or hives then with injuries sustained while training. In early April the 27th Battalion took part in its first significant engagement, the disastrous and confused fighting at St. Eloi craters, where they suffered heavy casualties. Two months later they were with the Canadian Corps at the Battle of Mount Sorrel (2-13 June 1916). The battle ended with almost no change to the front line but at a cost of 8,000 Canadian casualties.

In early July George became ill with renal calculus (kidney stones) and by mid-August he was a patient at No. 3 Stationary Hospital in Boulogne. From there he was evacuated to England and he spent about a month at the 3rd Western General Hospital in Cardiff. After a short rest at Bearwood Convalescent Centre he was back in the hospital on 28 September, this time at Moore Barracks, where he was diagnosed with renal colic. He also developed phlebitis in his leg and a medical board decided he would be invalided to Canada for further treatment. He embarked on the SS Letitia on 15 May 1917, arriving at Halifax a week later. He was an outpatient at the Winnipeg General Hospital starting on 4 June, then a patient at the Manitoba Military Convalescent Hospital from 23 June to 4 July. He continued to be treated as an outpatient until November of that year. He was discharged from the army on 8 February 1918, with his character described as very good.

George’s family moved to British Columbia after the war, eventually settling in Vancouver, but George went to Winnipeg where he found work as a bookkeeper. He was married in St. Boniface on 16 May 1921 to Adela Dorothy Anderson. Adela was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1900 and came to Canada with her family in 1905. Not long after they married George and Adela also moved to British Columbia and settled in the Vancouver area, where George continued to work as a clerk and bookkeeper. His mother died in Vancouver in 1930, his father in 1941 and his older brother Allan in 1942.

George retired in 1959 and passed away in Vancouver’s Shaughnessy Veterans Hospital on 15 June 1965, a few weeks before his 71st birthday. He was predeceased by his wife in 1957 and his younger brother Stuart Ross in 1964. George is buried in the Veterans Memorial Park in Surrey, BC.

By Becky Johnson

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